“Hamburg is always being mentioned in connection with September 11, 2001, and for this reason we feel we have a special responsibility to support the U.S.A. in this case.” This is what Kristin Breuer, a spokesperson for the Hamburg municipal government, told Germany’s ARD public television after it was announced that two Guantánamo detainees who had been slated for transfer would be coming to live in Germany — one of them in Hamburg.

Note Breuer’s exact words: it is because “Hamburg is always being mentioned in connection with September 11, 2001” that the municipal government felt it had to “support” the U.S. The formulation gives off more than just a faint whiff of denial. What, after all, would one say of a German official who commented that Germany should take some given measure because Germany is merely “always being mentioned in connection with” the Holocaust?